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RNC chairman defends Chris Christie

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus on Sunday praised Gov. Chris Christie’s handling of the bridge scandal as he tried to draw a distinction between how the New Jersey Republican and President Barack Obama has handled controversies in their administrations.

Priebus said Christie’s lengthy press conference on Thursday gave residents in New Jersey and people nationwide ample opportunity to judge his character and how he is dealing with the fallout over the closed lanes on the world’s most-trafficked bridge. That’s in contrast to Obama, whom Priebus criticized for providing little access to the public and the press.

“He trusted people that lied to him, and he fired those people,” Priebus said of Christie on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The president doubles down on [Attorney General] Eric Holder. He doubles down on Hillary Clinton and [former IRS official] Lois Lerner and [National Security Adviser] Susan Rice.”

Priebus said he was confident that no direct link will be identified to Christie in the bridge controversy, citing the thousands of pages of documents that have been made public that have not revealed ties to the Republican governor himself.

“There’s no question; he admitted mistakes happen,” Priebus said. “He admitted he trusted people that lied to him. America is a forgiving people but they’re forgiving when you take ownership, you make mistakes you take corrective action, and that’s what Chris Christie showed.”

In a separate interview on “Meet the Press,” Mark Sokolich – the mayor of Fort Lee, N.J., the town whose streets were clogged due to the lane closures – said he took Christie “at his word” when the governor said he had no prior knowledge of the bridge scheme.

“The issue is whether he knew, but if he didn’t know, he certainly should have known,” Sokolich said.